This invention relates to animal foods and more particularly to animal foods of the intermediate moisture variety.
Intermediate-moisture animal foods are known in the art and are characterized by moisture contents of from about 15 to 30% by weight and by their ability to remain shelf stable and resistant to bacteriological decomposition even after prolonged periods of storage without resort to sterilization, refrigeration, or special packaging techniques. Examples of such products and processes for producing them may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,202,514, 3,482,985 and 3,615,652.
These patents represent a significant advance in the animal food art. Owing to their higher moisture contents they are generally of much higher palatability than dry animal foods which are typically dried to a stable moisture content below about 10 percent by weight, and indeed approach the palatability achieved by canned animal foods which generally have a moisture content exceeding 75 percent by weight. However, owing to their ability to remain shelf-stable without resort to sterilization or refrigeration, these intermediate-moisture products have a significant processing and convenience advantage over canned products. Further, the high degree of palatability achieved at moisture contents significantly below those of canned products allows for the provision of nutritious, ration-balancing components.
The prior art has long desired to further improve the palatability nutrition and appeal of such intermediate-moisture animal foods. One means for achieving this result is by the overt addition of ingredients or flavorants for which animals are known to display a liking. Thus, for example, in the case of dogs, cheese has been known to be added to intermediate-moisture products to improve the palatability thereof.
Certain problems have, however, hampered the utilization of such techniques to improve the palatability of intermediate-moisture animal foods. Firstly, since the added palatability improver necessarily replaces or partly replaces other components of the food, the added palatability is often at the expense of nutritional ingredients desirably present in order to achieve a full balanced ration for the animal. Secondly, it is most desirable that the palatability improver be noticeable and distinct so as to enhance the appeal not only to the animal but, as is often an extremely important consideration, to the purchasing public. Thus, prior art processes involving the incorporation of flavorants or other palatability improvers have often failed to achieve success due to the visual indistinguishability of such products from products without such improvers.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of this invention to prepare shelf-stable intermediate-moisture animal food having improved palatability.
It is a further object of this invention to achieve this palatability improvement by the use of an ingredient which does not detract from the overall nutritional value of the animal food.
Yet another object of this invention is to prepare such an animal food by a process which results in the palatability improver being a readily distinguishable portion of the animal food product.
These and other objects will be apparent from the description and claims which follow.